


the memories in me, the lies in the past

by myriadslashes



Category: Cytus (Video Games), Cytus II (Video Game)
Genre: F/F, Gen, Implied Relationships, POV First Person, Spoilers for the 2.4 Update
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-13
Updated: 2019-07-13
Packaged: 2020-06-27 09:23:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19787968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/myriadslashes/pseuds/myriadslashes
Summary: Based on Paff's 2.4 update log "Audio_Cafe_702_11_17". In Paff's perspective.***"... ...Kaori," I say, so quiet that I'm not even sure she heard.The name is one I don't think I've ever spoken before, but that's impossible – it feels like home, like something that's been there since forever.***





	the memories in me, the lies in the past

* * *

It's cold at the café – JOEZ, I think it's called.

It's more like a pub, really. Unfamiliar drinks line the walls, and I can hear Mr. Miller speaking casually to Neko, but the words don't reach my ears. I'm on the barstool next to her, having avoided ordering anything to drink. I think I'd be sick if I did.

The lighting is dark, barely brightening up the room. There's definitely a strange sense of familiarity here, but I can't quite place it.

Maybe my body would know – the one that apparently comes from Node 03, the one that doesn't belong to me at all. ~~The one that I stole?~~

(The words that Helena said, the promise she made to take me back to the stage one day; what do I even believe anymore?)

"Aroma-chan!" Neko calls, and it takes me a moment to process that she's referring to me – I look back at her expectantly, but Mr. Mill... _Joe_ starts to speak instead.

"Sorry for the delay, Paff – you want to get some rest in the basement first? It's the safest place available for you, I promise it's impossible for anyone to find you in there."

_Paff,_ I think, and it's almost so suddenly _unfamiliar_ in that moment that I want to test it out, see how it rolls off the tongue – like I've forgotten my own name. Or at least the name most people call me by.

It takes me longer to respond than it should, and I blink one too many times. I can see Neko's face shift into one of concern out of the corner of my eye. "...Thank you so much for the help, Joe. I think I _do_ need to rest a little."

"It's no problem. Come on then, superstar." He gestures for me to follow him, and I do, the floorboards just barely creaking under my feet.

"i'll follow you guys down!" Neko declares, setting her drink down with a sound that's too loud for the liquid to have remained unspilt, and she flashes me a smile that makes me want to do the same. "NEKO wants to see what this top secret basement is like!"

"I haven't cleaned it in a while," Joe warns, "It's dusty, and no one's been there for ages – even I feel bad making you stay there, PAFF, but it'll do the job."

"Surely you could give Aroma-chan somewhere better to stay!" Neko remarks.

"You can clean it yourself," he suggests, right before we start the descent down the stairs to the basement. Neko huffs.

(" _If it's for you I wouldn't mind,"_ she says, only audible to me.)

There are only ten steps before we leave the light that stays behind us back in the main café.

The darkness closes in, and the thought that _I've been here before_ starts to get overwhelming, but before I know it Neko's slipped her hand into mine.

" _Don't worry, Aroma-chan, NEKO doesn't mind staying in there with you!"_

(I interlace our fingers, and grip tighter than usual. The headache partially clears.)

* * *

At the final step of the stairs, right before we enter the room, I trip.

Alarm pulses through me, but Neko pulls me back.

" _Aroma-chan_! Be more careful, okay? NEKO won't be here to catch you all the time!"

"Ah–"

_It's too much, the basement –_

As the pain in my head surges once again, images start to flash across my mind, places like a hospital bed from so long ago, from just after the car accident – people I don't even recognize, and people I do – _Where are these images from?_

Faintly I feel someone trying to support me, helping me stand again, but I can't do anything – I don't _have_ the capacity to –

"Y-your nose is bleeding! Are you okay?!"

I leave her grasp, suddenly, half-falling and half moving out of my own will. A newfound energy courses through me – _I need to find out where they came from._

(There are so many images now, each one more indecipherable – it's almost as if I'm viewing memories from someone else's life. The basement becomes clearer in my head – I've definitely been here before, there's no way I'm mistaken.)

"PAFF?!"

I start to examine the basement room, everything starting to look acutely recognizable. The walls, the floor, even the _emptiness_ of the place save for the few, varying items scattered everywhere –

I search through everything, but I process nothing. I don't even know what I'm looking for. I can't tell how long it goes on.

_"Haah…haah..."_

I look at the mess, things having crashed to the ground by my hand. The images come to a pause. It all stops, the conflict, the static in my head – just for a moment.

(I can faintly taste copper – from the blood that's made its way down my face.)

"A-Aroma…"

The wide-eyed girl behind me seems like a stranger, but why does her presence feel so …

"Did you remember something…?"

"I… I don't…"

She steps closer. (Who is she to be so concerned about me?) "Joe's gone to get a first-aid kit. Your hands, they –"

They're scored with various scratches and bloodied from my nosebleed. They shake slightly even as I look at them. "Ah… it's… better than it looks."

"NEKO will help you clean them up anyway."

_Neko_.

The name rings a bell in my disorderly mind. _Asakura Neko._ It's linked to good memories, happy ones, the ones I'm glad to remember –

and it all comes back to me, the past, once again. But this time there's a second set of memories that occupy the space as well, the _images_ that have made themselves more prominent.

She's noticed my hesitation, and speaks once again, "What did you remember?"

"... ... _Kaori_ , _"_ I say, so quiet that I'm not even sure she heard.

The name is one I don't think I've spoken before, but that's impossible – it feels like home, like something that's been there since forever.

"Who…?" She doesn't recognize it either. Where did it come from?

"I… don't know…"

(How could that search have yielded nothing…?)

"..." Neko looks toward the stairs. "We can find out later. Joe's back."

Just as she said, the bartender emerges from the stairs, looking visibly relieved that the frenzy has stopped. I wonder what he's thinking. 

"I don't know what happened, but you shouldn't move around too much," Joe says, "If you need anything, just ask."

He sets the kit down, and Neko starts to tend to me, carefully, gently. It still stings – but it's Neko, who I've come to believe has the best hands for me to be in.

She insists on wiping the blood away herself with the gauze, to my slight protest. It's impractical, really, the way she has to reach up, or the way she keeps brushing more of my hair to the side, but I don't stop her.

The hands I've always seen around a controller, or a headset, or most things detached from the real, harsh world – are now in a far different environment.

As she works on my own hands, I notice the mass destruction in the room, all of which was my own doing. Despite that, there's nothing to show for it. It's not the greatest feeling.

I catch her eye, as she finishes cleaning up; it reveals nothing but anxiety and confusion. _For me?_ About _me?_

"...Thank you, Neko," I say eventually.

She breaks into a smile, once again, with such ease that I couldn't hope to achieve: "Anything for you, Aroma-chan."

_To have a person like her, to whom I'm so greatly indebted, it's ..._

_If all the people who've cared for me, who I've trusted, were not the people I thought they were at all,_ _then what about_ –

_No, that's impossible_ , I think, _~~she's Neko~~ there's Hayato._

"Hayato...?" I speak, unthinkingly.

"Another name?" she asks.

I say nothing.

_Because I –_

_I remember now._

_"What…?"_ I whisper, to no one but myself. Who's thinking? Who's speaking for me? It's a blur, and I can't see what I'm looking at –

_What kind of life did Kaori live?_

It's painful, the thought that I _had_ this previous life, something so completely _different_ , before it was stopped in its tracks and railroaded into the life that Aroma White led. The people I've met, like Hayato, as _Kaori…_ would they still remember me?

"PAFF? Where are you – "

_It's only right that I search for them, isn't it?_

_"I have to go find him!"_ It's a desperate call, back to Neko, back to Joe, back to the basement I've just started taking the stairs out of. _Two at a time, not three, or I might slip –_

"Aroma!"

_Hayato. Node 03. The flower shop, Grandma Feng – ~~~~_

"Careful, Neko…!"

_The tunes we sang together, the attention it attracted, the familiarity of the streets –_

"Don't worry, I won't lose her!"

_The lavender, the drum,_ the promise to make our music together in Node 08 –

_"Hff… Caught you!"_

I nearly wrench my arm away from the grasp, but stop cold when I realize who it's attached to.

"Neko…"

" _What are you doing_?" Her hair's slightly windblown, a conflicted look in her eyes.

"I… I'm…"

We're nearly to the entrance of the café. ~~If I just nudge the door open and make a run for it, she won't know where to find me –~~

(No, I can't leave her like this.)

"I'm looking for someone I know."

She tilts her head to the side. "You _know_ NEKO's going to ask to come with you, right?"

(Only she has the power to lighten conversations so easily.)

"Of course… I didn't mean to leave you behind," I say, and I hope to myself that I'm telling the truth.

"Then let's go find this 'Hayato' together!"

She seems so happy just to help me, even if I'm not the person she thought I was, even if I'm no longer entirely the person she knew before.

A door swings open, and Joe appears, having finally reached the top of the stairs. "Ah… are you leaving? You sure that's okay, Neko?"

"I'll protect Aroma-chan no matter what!" she says almost instantly, "So it'll be fine!"

(It's one of the many times she's said things like that, but evidently from the relief I feel, it hasn't gotten old.)

"If you say so…" Joe pauses, and fishes in his pocket. "While you were running after PAFF, I was looking for that Hayato person… I think I found a business card from him."

Neko takes the card, examines it with raised eyebrows. "Eh?! Isn't this that reporter who was chasing us down yesterday?!"

"So he's been searching all this while…?" It still doesn't feel real – the fact that there was another life lived in this same body.

"There's a company address there, I think," Joe says, "If you're looking for him…"

"Got it! NEKO thanks you!"

I take her hand, even as the wounds below the bandages start to sting again, and offer her my most confident look.

"Let's go, Neko."

She squeezes my hand, as if to comfort me, and quickly apologizes after she realizes her mistake.

(The pain remains, but so does her touch.)

"Good luck out there," Joe calls. "I hope you find what you're looking for."

_What_ am _I looking for?_

The doorbell rings as I lead Neko out the entrance to JOEZ, the business card in my other hand.

* * *

_It's no matter_ , I realize, even as we approach the company building that holds the potential truths to all of my questions.

_With Neko, I'm sure I'll find the answers._

* * *


End file.
